Continuing our reporting on the Architecture Billings Index, the ABI score slighly increased from 50.0 in January to 50.6 this past month. Although only a small jump, regional average for the Midwest and South remained over 50 (55.3 and 50.1 respectively), and the West and Northeast reported scores of 49.1 and 46.4. ”Overall demand for design services seems to be treading water over the last two months,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “We’ve been preaching patience and cautious optimism for a full recovery because there continues to be a wide range of business conditions for architecture firms that are also influenced by firm size, practice specialties and regional location. We still expect the road to recovery to move at a slow, but steady pace.”

Just over a month ago, we were happy to report that our field seemed to be through the toughest time, as the Architecture Billings Index had increased for the third straight month showing a sustained economic improvement. Now, we are definitely not so happy to share some information that a lot of architects assumed would happen. Following our strong spring, the AIA billings index dropped quite precipitously from 48.5 to 45.8 and every region declined. The rough month suggests that our recovery will continue to be long and frustrating, a worrisome reality that some professionals may have been anticipating. “I was a bit surprised by it, particularly the magnitude,” AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker said. “It’s been jumping around for the past six to nine months, but this is a big drop after some pretty steady gains.” We know these times are extremely difficult but we are still keeping our optimism and hoping for the best. As seen on the Architect’s Newspaper